


Steady hands

by inflowers



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:00:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22401448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inflowers/pseuds/inflowers
Summary: Levi collapses, and Nico's hands won't stop trembling and he wants to use a word that's more than love but he can't think of one so he settles on love.During/Post s16e10
Relationships: Nico Kim/Levi Schmitt
Comments: 8
Kudos: 304





	Steady hands

Link must have thought he was being helpful to offer for Nico to step out. Anyone else might have gratefully accepted that offer. It makes perfect sense that anyone else wouldn’t want to continue with their job just after they’d seen their partner collapse. But not Nico. Because Nico needs to focus.

He needs his hands to be occupied so that they don’t fidget and twitch, so they don’t shake, because he knows that’s what they’ll do if they aren’t doing this. So Nico is doing this, because he won’t be able to fix Levi but he can fix Helm, and Helm is Levi’s best friend, and Nico loves Levi. It’s simple, really. Nico is doing this because Levi would if Levi could.

So Nico keeps screwing the screws and placing the plates, and when they think they might lose her, Nico keeps his hands busy and focuses. He forgets about Levi, momentarily, while he helps save Helm’s life. Nico does this because it’s what Levi would expect of him. No, it’s what Levi would demand of him. And Nico demands it of himself.

When it’s over and she’s taken to recovery, Nico scrubs out. He scrubs at his hands, moving them over each other as though they can’t quite get clean enough, but they won’t stop shaking and he can’t get them still enough to scrub them properly. He’s still scrubbing when Link walks in and strips off his gown and cap.

“Nico.” But Nico doesn’t hear him, because he’s too focused on his hands. On scrubbing them, moving them, trying to get them to stop shaking. “Nico. Stop.”

Link reaches out and turns off the tap. He puts one hand on Nico’s shoulder and forces Nico to look at him. Only then does Nico stop scrubbing his hands, but they tremble as Link pulls him into a hug.

“I can’t lose him, Link.” Nico says quietly. And Link doesn’t respond, because he doesn’t know what’s wrong with Levi and he’s not making promises he can’t keep. Instead, Link claps Nico on the back and tells him to go and find him. Nico is grateful that he doesn’t tell him Levi will be okay, because Nico knows he wouldn’t believe it anyway, and he doesn’t want Link to lie to him.

But Nico doesn’t look for Levi, because he needs to know before he sees him.

So Nico looks for Meredith instead.

+

“Dr Kim, I know you know this, but I can’t discuss Dr Schmitt’s condition with you.”

“I know, Dr Grey. And I appreciate that. It’s just that – it’s Levi and he’s…” Nico doesn’t know how to say it, saying ‘I love him’ doesn’t cover it. It doesn’t capture everything that Levi is to Nico, it doesn’t seem enough. So he pauses, and hopes that she gets it. 

“He’s your person.” She offers, because she does get it. “I know, Kim. And while I can’t discuss Dr Schmitt’s condition with you, in the interests of sharing medical knowledge, let’s hypothetically say that I had a patient today who suffered from a rare condition and I needed to do some research about it. And let’s just say that I got paged for a consult, and I left that research on a nurse’s station and a conscientious young orthopaedic surgeon came across it and read it. Hypothetically, of course.”

Meredith drops her iPad on the nurse’s station and walks away, but Nico doesn’t watch her leave because his hands are reaching for the iPad. They’re still trembling as he picks it up, which he momentarily thinks is not a trait that a surgeon should have. He should be able to still them, but he’s terrified that when he looks on the screen he’ll see something he can’t unsee, and that nothing will be the same again. So his hands shake.

When he sees the words “broken heart syndrome,” he pauses. He doesn’t understand. Why would Levi have a broken heart? Things are fine with them. Things are _great_ with them. Unless they’re not, and Nico hasn’t noticed. But how could Nico not notice? These thoughts come in and out over and over as he reads. He reads about how the condition is brought on by stress, and he thinks about the car crashing through the bar and the residents being horrible to Levi and the fact that for weeks _he_ treated Levi like trash because he couldn’t handle his own pain.

And all of a sudden, Nico understands how it got to this. And he _hates_ it.

+

Nico watches Levi sleep for hours. He eventually goes to the cafeteria and buys a burger that he doesn’t really want, but he knows it’ll keep his hands busy, so he eats it anyway.

Eventually he falls asleep but he doesn’t want to, because he wants to be awake when Levi wakes up. He wants to tell him all of the things he’s been thinking for the last few hours, all the ways in which Levi has changed him, made him better, made _everything_ better. But eventually, exhaustion takes over and he falls asleep, waking only when Levi shuffles in his bed. It’s a sound that Nico is used to, the sound of Levi waking up. And it’s a sound he cannot sleep through.

Nico's hand reaches for Levi's and they talk, saying not much but somehow saying a lot. Levi wants to see Helm because of course he does, but Nico wants a few more minutes, crawling in behind Levi like it’s the only place on earth he feels safe.

“Hey.” Nico says quietly in Levi’s ear, because he knows he’s not asleep. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“I didn’t know things were this bad, but I should have. I pushed you to engage with them, when they were being awful to you. I pushed you at the bar. And when Josh…”

Levi turns in Nico’s arms, which is difficult but necessary. He reaches up and runs a hand down Nico’s cheek, which is suspiciously wet but Levi doesn’t say anything and Nico is so grateful for that, for _him_.

“This isn’t your fault.”

“But I push you, Levi. I demand so much from you and I give you nothing in return except a broken heart.”

“Do you really believe that?” Levi asks, pressing where it hurts. “Do you know what you give me? How you’ve changed me? You love me, Nico. That’s what you give me. You demand that I am better not for you but for myself, _because_ you love me.” Levi buries his head into Nico’s chest where it’s warm, where he can feel Nico’s heart beating. “And yeah, it was screwed up what happened with Josh. You treated me really badly. But we’re through that; we’ve dealt with it. I forgave you because _I_ love _you_. Now you need to forgive yourself.”

Nico puts his hand on Levi’s chest, and it’s not trembling anymore. Still, moving only as Levi’s breath makes his hand rise and fall. In the stillness of the moment, Nico breathes and Levi breathes and Nico forgives.

+

Nico watches Helm forgive Levi, watches their hands touch on the side of the bed and he looks at his own. He thinks of all the bones they’ve fixed, all of the people they’ve touched, his hands on Levi’s skin in the morning light of his apartment. And he thinks of the things his hands have done wrong, he thinks of Josh and the others before him, he think of the lovers whose hearts he’s broken and the disappointment on his father’s face when he came home from school with bruised knuckles and a black eye. He leans back on them, steadying them against the counter while Levi and Helm laugh quietly between themselves.

He hears Levi saying he waited his whole life to find Nico, and all of a sudden Nico’s hands start trembling again. Not because of fear, but relief. Because he hasn’t let himself think about it since the sound of a horn and the darkness of the bar, but he came so close to losing it all. The adrenaline is gone but now all that’s left is relief that makes him feel like the floor is coming out from underneath him but also like he can fly. He moves behind Levi and places his hand on Levi’s shoulder to steady himself, and he lets Levi’s fingers trailing over his hand bring him peace. He laughs with them, enjoys the moment of joy between them, before his hands stop trembling long enough to wheel Levi back to his room and leave him to get some more sleep.

He goes back to Helm’s room later that afternoon to check on her. He could ask a resident to do it, but this is Levi’s best friend and Levi needs her, so Nico is going to make sure it’s done properly.

“Hey.” She says quietly, waking up to find Nico updating her chart. “Is Schmitt sleeping?”

“Yeah.” He replies, smiling at her. Despite his better judgment, despite his anger at how she treated Levi, Nico likes her. And more importantly, he likes that she’s in Levi’s corner.

“Thanks for, you know. Saving my leg and everything.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And uh – thanks for looking after Levi. When I was being mean to him. I shouldn’t – I don’t know, things were really screwed up for awhile but I’m glad he had you. Has you. I don’t know, you know what I mean.” Helm slurs her words a little, the anaesthesia still not quite worn off.

“I do.” Nico confirms, sitting down in the chair near her bed. “I’m not going to lie to you, Helm. It was screwed up to treat him like that. He was just doing what he thought was right. But I screwed up too, and somehow he just forgives us for doing it.”

“I guess he’s just a better person than we are.” Helm laughs softly, and Nico can’t argue with that. “Just, like, don’t hurt him or whatever. He deserves good things.”

“I love him.” Nico says earnestly, because he can’t say anything else. He’s never had the words before, and he’s never _going_ to have the words to be able to tell anyone, Levi included, just what he means to him. So he settles for love, because it’s as close as he’s going to get to putting a name to the feeling.

Helm reaches out and takes hold of one of Nico’s hands, a moment of boldness likely brought on by morphine and the trauma of believing she was going to die.

“I know you do.” She says, because she believes him. “I know.”

And Nico holds her hand, as the last of the twitches and tremors and terror leave his.


End file.
